Crowdsourcing platform Halaat-O-Meter finalist mBillionth Award

Halaat-O-Meter is our crowdsourcing platform that allows people to see and report the security situation in their area. This comes particularly in handy if you live in tumultuous places such as Pakistan. The innovation of Halaat-O-Meter has been recognised by the jury and we are now shortlisted for the mBillionth Award 2014, an award that recognises best practices for social development in the mobile and telecom sector in South Asia.

Through the Halaat-O-Meter website and mobile app residents can posts updates on the situation in their neighbourhood during times of trouble. Reports are geo tagged and appear on a map so that other people who live in or travel through the same neighborhood have reliable information about the security situation. We feel that it is a great way to empower people to inform and serve each other.

The Billionth Award highlights the latent potential of the mobile and telecom sector in 8 South Asian countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. 2014 is going to witness mBillionth entering into its 5th year of recognizing the best practices for social development via mobile as a first screen. The winners will be announced on 18 July.

It is not the first time that Halaat-O-Meter has been recognised as an interesting idea: just after the launch, it got featured at Al Jazeera.